


the killers of orpheus

by petraquince



Series: A Very Godly Mess [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bohemian Rhapsody, Charles You Will Be Drunk, Crack, Gratuitous italics, M/M, Sassy Erik, Sassy Raven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-08-29
Packaged: 2018-02-15 08:00:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2221530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petraquince/pseuds/petraquince
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A briefly comic interlude in which Charles Xavier gets rascally drunk. From the same universe as my previous work, but an AU within that. Almost complete crack, but does have some darker feels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the killers of orpheus

**Author's Note:**

> Howdy, y'all. Don't worry, I haven't given up on thioh and the next chapter is in the works, but this is just a little sideways adventure. 
> 
> So, obviously, the lyrics they sing are from Queen’s masterpiece “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Officers Sophie and Jenkins are, of course, a loving homage to Howl’s Moving Castle. There are a few others scattered throughout.
> 
> The inspiration came from a horrifically funny story my neighbors told me at a dinner party. Clearly, I need new friends.

.Bismillah

“Is this the real life --”

“Jesus Christ. Jenkins, can’t you drive any _faster_ \--”

“ _Or is it just fantasy_ \--”

“Screw you, Sophie, I’m an officer of the law. I very firmly believe in upholding them --”

“CAUGHT IN A LANDSLIDE, NO ESCAPE FROM REALITY --”

“You owe me big time --”

“EASY COME, EASY GO, LITTLE HIGH, LITTLE LOW --”

“ _Goddamnit_.”

 

.Magnifico

It was a Friday night. The beer was flowing, the stars were shining and the bar felt unpleasantly warm. Really, it was all Darwin’s fault. Bloody Darwin and those damnable finches of his, with -- with their different shaped beaks and Galapagos charm.

No, wait, hold on a moment: wrong Darwin. Why do there have to be so _many_ , it’s not exactly a common name, this is distressing to Charles’ poor, beleaguered brain.

Anyway. Bloody Armando-Darwin and the damnable vodka shots with their different colors and alcoholic charm. And the screwdriver before that. And the rum and coke previously. It had been happy hour(s), okay, and Darwin was buying ‘cause he had matriarched -- er, matriculated -- to Cornell; and Priam’s purple panties could that man drink. It was natural for Charles to want to grind him into the bar floor beneath his heel.

Oh, _dear_. His analogies were clearly broken. Drinking did something inexcusable to his grammar and verbiage.

Still, clearly, if you were to trace the cause and effect of this night on a vaguely linear scale on a piece of paper from point A to point B and so forth, the connected dots would read both “Charles is a lush” and “It’s all Darwin’s fault”.

Because, really, it _was_. Charles was an entirely innocent third party, butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, that’s how angelic he thinks he is. Victimated. Victimized. Whichever. At least he could still talk and walk a vaguely straight line, but he’s still a bit of a lightweight (damn his five foot nonsense inches to Hell and back).

And it really was time to go, as the neon lights swam around in front of his eyes. Time to go before the barkeep discovered Charles’ very obvious ogling of him. People have these habits, you see, that they fall into like carts on a rutted road. Scientists looked longingly at logarithms. Charles gawked at attractive people. Sue him. The man was a callipygean ecstasy.

 

.Figaro

There were flashing lights pulling up behind him. Hmm, this was an interesting phenomenon. Oh, look, it was a slim white-ish car with blotches. And pretty lights mounted on the roof. Pretty red and blue lights, with a swooping sound that was vaguely familiar to him.

Oh. _Oh_.

“Good evening, officers, is there a problem?” Charles said cheerfully, grinning broadly, leaning like a condemned house against his poor bicycle. This only works up to a point.

The two officers exchanged a look laden with meaning, the woman snorting ever so slightly and the man wincing. It was a look that spoke of deep, mutual history. However, it was one a little beyond Charles’ imbibed ken at the moment. That was annoying.

Oh. Oh _yeah_. Good thing he could read minds, then. This demigod lark really did come in handy every once in a while.

 

.Scaramouche

It was his finest rendition of “Bohemian Rhapsody” to date. Complete with audibly dramatic changes in dynamics and sound effects for the instrumentally bits. Sitting in the back of the police car, drunk as a fish, grinning his face off and soulfully serenading the privacy barrier while certainly being recorded for posterity and a great deal of laughs later on was also probably the happiest he’d been in a long time.

That was part of the theorem Charles worked on in the back of his head during pub crawls. He called it the Xavier postulate. Raven, when she indulged, had the tendency to lapse into repeated, melodious bellows of “blue jean baby queen, prettiest girl I ever seen”. Repeated. Did he mention it already? It bore repeating: repeated.

It was, essentially, this: both of the Xaviers had a penchant for singing seventies hits. And they were happy drunks, which was a very good thing. The universe couldn’t withstand two unhappy Xaviers belting out Amazing Grace -- in two part harmony -- while Hank from the lab solemnly played the bagpipes in the background more than once. It would implode dramatically.

That had happened, under the influence of whisky. It went down in the annals of history as an incident that was never mentioned again. Hank had never gone drinking with them ever again, which is a shame because he’s such a nice young man, who shows great promise and Raven had a blatant crush on him.

But he digresses.

He’s sitting on a thin mattress, still happy, in a tiny cell. It’s a nice happy. It’s the kind of happy you feel when you’re glad to be alive and even if the world is still marginally shitty, you’re still smiling because fuck it, you deserve to. And he’s still singing loudly in his pleasant tenor.

“Mama! Oooh...”

The only other man in there with him rolls his eyes quite audibly and Charles catches hold of a huge sense of _this is my life, haven’t I suffered enough._ He's sitting on the bed opposite him, studying his hands. He was quite handsome.

“You didn’t hold that last note long enough.”

“I beg your pardon?” Charles said, still quite cordial but ever so slightly annoyed.

“Its ‘Mama, _oooooh_. You need to hold it out for another beat.” He sang the small part in a truly lovely tenor that was gruff and raspy and had the same feel as a particularly good jazz singer.

“That’s lovely,” Charles said out loud, “You have a very mellifluous voice, my friend. Another beat, you said?”

The other man nodded fluidly. “You’re cutting off just a tad too soon.”

“Charles Xavier,” He offered his hand to the man to shake, who took it hesitantly and dropped it just as quickly.“I’m in for public nuisancery and overall disturbance of the peaces.”

“Of which there are plural, apparently." The man smirked, looking at Charles from under his eyelashes. "Overindulge?”

“ _Precisely_.” He nodded sagely, collapsing on his back dramatically with a hand on his forehead, “I was just minding my own business --”

“Must’ve been rather loud business --”

“And the fuzz picked me up quite unjusticely and locked me away without so much as a how-do-you-do. The nerve, the sheer and utter galling cheek of it. What are you in for, my friend?”

The other man smiled a very sharklike smile, that displayed far too many teeth to be socially acceptable and, if he had been placed in a witness line-up, hands down he would’ve been chosen as the perp. Just because of that smile. It spoke of menace and dark alleys and all kinds of debaucheries. It was not a very nice smile.

“Murder,”

Charles couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. His telepathy was being all funny probably because of all the beverages of alcoholic disposition. l

“Jolly good. then. Were they very annoying?” He can’t really bring himself up to the point of alarm.

He smiled that smile again, “The worst.”

 

.Galileo

 

_A few minutes and an awkward silence later_

“He’s just a poor boy, from a poor family --” Charles starting singing under his breath again, just to test the waters. He was rewarded sevenfold.

“Spare him his life from this monstrosity!” The other man chimed in, slightly hesitant but right on cue.

“Easy come, easy go, will you let me go?”

“Bismallah, no, we will not let you go!” His baritone was magnificent and Charles had to modify his tenor to a higher falsetto to compromise on the chorus exchanges.

“Let him go!”

It was magical.

 

.Beelzebub

_A few hours after that_

“Oh, gods.” Charles groaned, clutching his skull. “It feels like the maenads went for a jog inside my head. I think they used my cerebellum as a punching bag.”

“Well, I’m afraid I can’t say I’ve ever felt the same way.” The man smirked again, still sitting in the exact same spot he’d been in previously, hands folded. It’s like he’s an android.

Charles flapped a hand at him. _Aren’t you a bloody saint_. “I still don’t know your name, but if I did I’d curse it from here to next Tuesday.”

“You really think that esoteric threats give me any incentive to tell you it?” He raised an eyebrow.

The shorter man considered that logic. “I suppose not,”

The door clanged open suddenly, startling both of them. Charles was the only one who jumped, because the man clearly had too much composure to ever betray a normal human emotion. Again, android. Or a bloody shark.

“Xavier, your sister’s posted your bail. We’ll be seeing you later this week in the courthouse.” The guard was wearing a slightly demented leer. _Oh, shite_. One face loomed in the policeman’s thoughts, and it wasn’t a very pleased face but it was very familiar. At least it hadn’t been blue at the time.

“Mm, indeed. Can’t I just stay in here a little longer? At least until my headache passes?” He pleaded, batting his big eyes shamelessly. The peeler just _looked_ at him.

Charles could read the writing on the walls. He stood soundlessly, but inside his head he was already ordering his coffin and making the arrangements for the funeral. He’d have a royal blue shroud, please and thanks very much.

“Fare thee well, Odysseus. I doubt we'll meet again.” He tipped an imaginary hat to the man, who groaned gutturally and made shooing motions.

“I liked you better when you were drunk off your ass and singing.” He informed him.

“That’s what they all say, my friend.”

 

.Mama

“There was an empousai attack downtown in the early evening, and you and I were on call. I went. You were supposed to be there.” Raven says shortly, arms crossed, lean muscle flexing. “Someone _died_ , Charles.”

He wished that that could’ve been a non sequitur with all his heart.

“I hope you understand that actions have consequences.”

Charles threw up his hands, semi-good mood evaporating immediately, to be replaced with a thick veneer of guilt, annoyance and yet more guilt. “What do you want from me, Raven? I went out with some friends, had a bit much to drink --”

“And neglected your duties.” She leaned in closer and prodded him with a finger, “There is a reason we have swords, Charles, and it’s not because they’re shiny.”

She had a point. Pun not intended.

“So you’re saying that, hypothetically, my being there could’ve singlehandedly saved some nameless person and averted tragedy.” He accused. “That’s not the way the universe works, m’dear.”

She slumped a little, and turned blue again with a long sigh. “I...just I didn’t know where you were. You never showed up and I thought --”

Oh, seven hells. He'd read the signs completely wrong: she wasn't just mad, she was _worried_ too.

“Who was it?” He asked gently, annoyance forgotten, looking her in the eyes.

“A little kid -- one of Clarisse’s. He tagged along, and we didn’t see him, and he snuck up and he -- he took a _sword_ through the chest.” There was something like tears in her voice. “I got his blood on my hands when I held him, I turned into his mama for him because he was scared and _oh gods_ , he was so _little_. I still see it, Charles, like awful beet juice.” She sat down heavy on a curb and her hands were shaking and they were faintly purple around the nails -- dried blood.

He crouched down next to her and threaded a hand through her hair the other one cupping her shoulder, completely unconcerned with the mortals. The Mist would take care of Raven, he just didn’t have the heart to scold her. She’d seen people die before, they all had, but she’d never reacted quite like this. They had their own rough stretch when they were younger and still could sleep the night through -- and then the nightmares came. The youth didn’t stay long among gods and demons.

“Shh, shh, Raven, little birdie, don’t you cry.” He hushed her as she started to cry against his shoulder, held upright only by those little spurs of bone covered in a layer of muscle, fat and sweater. “Mama’s gonna make you an apple pie.”

“Goddamnit, Charles, I was so scared. He looked like you did when you were younger and the sweet look on his face never faded even when his lungs were collapsing and his body was hemorrhaging and I never want to see that _again_.”

And that is why demigods are a largely unhappy crowd and Charles relishes drinking and being happy when he can get it. One moment everything is fine and they’re having a gay old time and the next moment someone is facedown in a gutter or a field.

He rocked her back and forth very gently, and this took some doing while perched on a curb outside a county jail in the middle of a sleepy town that was still waking up. Eventually, she petered off into little hiccups that demanded curing.

“Did someone kill it?” He had to ask, he had to make sure but he hated doing so, squeezing her shoulder. A little old lady watering her carnations eyed them warily from the opposite side of the street ( _kids these days, with their woad and emotional outbursts_ ). If Charles had any less restraint, he would’ve flipped her the American bird.

“Yeah,” She sniffled, wiping at her face and blowing her nose. Charles quickly handed her a handkerchief. “Some guy showed up out of the middle of fucking nowhere, levitating, like, five thousand swords and stabbed the bitch.” She added another damning phrase with a frown. “Looked like Jaws.”

Slowly, the penny began its descent.

“Jaws?”

“Shark, Charles, _gods_. Get with the program.”

“Son of a bitch.” Charles said wonderingly. “‘ _Murder_ ’. Did he say anything?”

“He gave me his number, just in case,” she fumbled around for her purse and retrieved it. There was a grotesque red fingerprint on the back of the scrap of paper. Charles swallowed back bile at the sight of it. “Then the police showed up -- I legged it with...” She faltered and trailed off.

The phone number wasn’t a local one, and clearly a mobile one. Charles had an inkling that the man wasn’t in the prison cell anymore. Frankly, he didn’t think any prison cell on earth could’ve held him in.

Well, that matter would just have to wait.

“Come on, m’dear, let’s get you all cleaned up and I’ll tell you the amusing tale of my woeful imprisonment to cheer you up.”

“Contradiction,” She pointed out, just to be a brat.

“Don’t be a brat, Raven,” He ruffled her hair then pressed a quick kiss to her forehead as she recoiled comically.

 

.Fandango

 

_The next day_

“You’ve reached Erik Lehnsherr’s voicemail. Leave a message at the sound of the expletive.”

 _Beep_.

“Hello, _Erik_. It’s Charles, your cell mate. Call me, darling, we have a lot of catching up to do.”

He didn’t have long to wait. He stretched, nibbled his danish and sipped his tea and by the time he had finished the first crossword, the dulcet tones of Freddie Mercury rang out across the coffee shop.

“ _Who’s playing Queen?_ Damnit, Jason, I told you I hated them!”

“Chill, Nico --”

“Good morning, Erik.” Charles said pleasantly. “You wouldn’t believe what my ringtone for you is.”

“How did you get this number?” The suspicion scorched at his ears and he had to lift the phone from his ear with a wince as he crescendoed to fortissimo on the last syllable.

“I believe you gave it to my sister after vanquishing a see-you-next-Thursday that was in dire need of a wax on one leg and a tuneup on the other.”

There was a stream of expletives from the other end of the call. Some of them were quite creatively strung together. Some of them were German. Lehnsherr was clearly a master. You have never been really yelled at until you have been yelled at in German.

“My, my, Erik. You sound like a well educated sailor.”

“Stop saying my name!”

“But it’s such a nice one -- mine sounds like a stuffy college professor’s.”

“What do you want from me?” Lehnsherr barked.

Charles adjusted his hair in the window. “Is coffee amenable?”

“No.” And with that, he hung up.

“Son of a bitch,” Charles said for the second time that week.

He returned to his crossword but couldn’t really focus on it. What’s nine letters long and ends in “ed”? Oh, yeah, depressed. A state with which he is rapidly becoming more familiar with.

“ _MAMA! Just killed a man, put against his head, pulled the trigger now he’s dead_ \--”

The phone. Could it be…? Charles lunged for it as Nico howled his angst from the kitchens.

“Hello?” He said breathlessly, heart beating a little faster.

“Goddamnit, Charles, I just pictured this pathetic little look on your face as I hung up and instantly felt this sharp pain in my chest. Is that what they call guilt?”

Charles snorted, relieved and slightly ecstatic, “‘ _They_ ’. Yes, my friend, that sounds very much like guilt or heart failure. So…?”

“Would you care to go see a movie with me?” The other man asked, very matter of fact to the point of terse.

He almost snickered, “Why, _Erik_ , maybe I have something else to do --”

“Charles, clearly you’re easier than microwaveable waffles, stop acting coy.”

Hmm, maybe he had a point. Still, he had a reputation to maintain.

“Excuse you!”

 

.My life had just begun

_Three months later_

Raven sat at the kitchen table, a smarmy grin fixed in place that was clearly moving nowhere soon. “So, how’s married life?”

Erik choked on his coffee (black and oily). Charles thumped him on the back a few times wordlessly, one eye still on the newspaper.

“We’re not married, Raven. I feel the urge to point that out.”

The look she shot them left no doubts as to how intelligent she thought they were, collectively. “Oh, _please_. You two are like the poster children for marital bliss.”

The two men exchanged looks. Charles sighed. “Erik, I dealt with her last time. It’s your turn now.”

“ _Geliebter_ …” He pleaded, hand inching up his lover’s leg suggestively. Charles didn’t even blush.

“Nope. No mercy,” The shorter man stood and pressed a kiss to his forehead and then Raven’s. Erik stole the crossword in retaliation. “I’m off, urgent genomes need splicing. I trust you will remember to put the casserole in the oven this time?”

“Yes, dear. Come hell or high water,” Erik said distractedly, racking his brain for a word that started with “vir”.

“Have fun with your fellow dinosaurs.” Raven said nastily whilst projecting _case in point_ towards her brother as loudly as she could. She remembered every time Charles promised her she could be Maid of Honor at his wedding. Every single time. Like a motherfucking elephant.

“Mm, I will, thanks.” He swanned out the kitchen, shrugging on his blue cardigan and adjusting his suspenders cheerily. The two other occupants watched him: tiny, almost identical grins on their faces. The front door swung shut behind him. Raven tactfully waited a few seconds before rounding on Erik.

“You’d better ask my permission before you propose. _Or else_.”

An eyebrow rose almost unintentionally as Erik racked his brain. _Virile? Virulent?_ “What makes you think I am going to propose to Charles?”

“Don’t make me laugh,” She displayed her blindingly white teeth, “You and I both know you’re practically soul mates. Need I remind you of your first date?”

Erik shuddered. “That was _not_ a _date_ , fuck you, Raven.”

“Sweetie, you’re so transparent it’s hilarious.” She checked the time, “And I have an appointment, so I’d better get going too. Will you be alright on your own, poor baby?”

“Just leave already, freeloader.” He shooed her towards the door, “Mustn’t keep those STD tests waiting too long…”

She swatted the back of his head, “Think on my words, Magnifico.”

That rankled him. “It’s _Magneto_ , Raven, if I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times!”

 

He felt a certain fondness towards that epithet. Charles had come up with it.

She rolled her eyes. “What _ever_ , loser.”

The house was infinitely more quiet with the absence of the savage siblings, and the birds were chirping -- fucking bluejays, flying _rats_ \-- and all was well with the world. The crossword was delightfully devilish, the coffee was good and the bills were paid. There were no marauding hellhounds or creatures of monstrous persuasion. The weight of the box in his pocket and the hum of the silver made for a nice reminder and Erik felt like the happiest demigod this side of the Atlantic.

 

 _The end_.

And then Erik Lehnsherr remembered he hated cliche happy endings and felt the burgeoning urge to stab someone.

But not Charles, because he loved him. Perhaps Raven, because she was annoying and always right. But then Charles would be sad, and when Charles was sad he tended to spread it around with a shovel.

Maybe he’d stab his boss instead. Yeah, Sebastian Shaw deserved to die -- assigning five new facade designs within two weeks was grounds for a score. It was decided, then.

He’d do it after the honeymoon and bury the body under his rosebuds. Scumbags made for nice fertilizer.


End file.
